Tag: dating sims

It’s been busy for me lately! But not in a bad way. It’s all been fun stuff.

I’ve started writing a column on sex games at Kotaku! Which I cheekily named Come Yourself To Death (I’m very excited to cover Hadaka Shitsuji when that localization comes out). So far there are two pieces, the first on the yuri (girl/girl romance) game Kindred Spirits on the Roof and the second on a game jam game about explicit consent, Cute Demon Crashers. I have a list of interesting games I plan to play and write about, so please look forward to that!

I met my current partner on the internet 15 years ago. We found each other in a newsgroup (which was like an email-based forum aka Google Groups) and built our relationship via a related IRC chatroom and the phone calls. So flirting with characters in a chatroom format feels rather nostalgic.

Cheritz, the Korean developer that created Mystic Messenger, is a studio I’ve followed for a couple of years now. I bought their debut game, Dandelion, directly via their website. They were early adopters of localizing their otome games into English and I was all about supporting that, back when options were very slim.

I was initially taken in by Dandelion’s cute hook of dating animals that turn into men, but stayed for the surprisingly bittersweet endings and endearing characters. I later recommended their follow-up game, Nameless, in my Offworld article about otome games. And I did a bit of a Let’s Play of it.

Mystic Messenger is a free-to-play mobile game, very much unlike their more premium priced PC games. But the Cheritz soul is still there. This time instead of a day-to-day simulation or liner visual novel experience Mystic Messenger’s story is told through interactive chatrooms that naturally unlock every couple of hours. You can expedite this process using the hourglass currency you can earn and buy, but I really recommend sticking to the natural cadence of the game. It makes for a better experience.

You can also use these hourglasses to backtrack to inserting yourself into missed chats. Otherwise if you don’t keep up the chat opportunities will pass and you’ll be reading through archives, watching the characters chat about you while you observe. It’s kind of lonely and extremely effective to encourage you to pay attention when the chats first pop up. That’s also why I transferred the game to my phone instead of my iPad.

Through your chats and text messages you’ll first learn that Jumin is a trust fund kid who loves his cat, Zen is a narcissistic up-and-coming actor, Yoosung is a college student obsessed with an MMO, Seven is an erratic sysadmin, and Jaehee is an eternally suffering personal assistant.

Over time you’ll get to know and prefer some of them over the others, either consciously or unconsciously choosing your chat responses to pay attention to and side with one of them. After a couple of real time days the story will branch and that character will be your focus for the rest of the game.

Oh and sometimes the denizens of Mystic Messenger will literally call you. You can put your headphones in and have professional Korean voice actors chatting in your ear. I always pick up immediately for Jumin and Jaehee.

Recently relocating to New York City has turned me into a travel hermit. With enough events locally to keep me busy every month I balk at the idea of flying across the country to wear myself down during my habitual San Francisco GDC excursion.

Trains and busses are tolerable. So this past weekend I was back in Boston for the first time since moving away in November, exploring my old stomping grounds in a new light and attending PAX East!

Saturday morning I burst awake and rushed to the convention center at the last minute to make it to the FFXIV panel. I have unexpectedly found myself caring quite a bit about this game, now that I have become invested in level-capped content. Present for the talk were the Japanese producer Naoki Yoshida (aka Yoshi-P, the man who saved FFXIV) and lead localization guru Michael Christopher Koji-Fox. It’s been rare for developers to leave Japan to personally present at conventions like PAX, but lately it is becoming more common at professional events like GDC. Yoshi-P’s team takes a lot of its cues from Western MMO development so they endeavor to make themselves available to feedback like Blizzard and Arenanet do. I was lucky enough to be able to ask my question from the audience about chocobos being summonable while queued for duty finder dungeons (currently a technical limitation due to the way companions work but being worked on!) and after the panel Yoshi-P agreed to a selfie.

I mostly made the trip to help my friend Christine Love at her booth for her upcoming game, Ladykiller in a Bind. I performed the same role at PAX West in Seattle last year. It’s extremely fun to meet and chat with the folks curious about her game, then coax them to give the discrete show floor demo a try. A majority of comers had never played any of Christine’s prior works nor had even heard of visual novels!

That evening was the staple Foreplay: Romance in Games panel. While I wasn’t on it this year my good friend Arden Ripley was for the first time. I was right up front being loud and supportive, much like Arden had been when I was on the panel the year prior. The entire room was bawdy and riotous, especially Judy Tyrer, who had worked on Second Life and now was a founder of the Jane Austen MMO, Ever Jane. She brought up great anecdotes about regency courtship rituals and penis-through-walls incidents. I want to be like her when I grow up.

Then in May I’ll be attending Anime Fan Fest in New Jersey. I’ve been invited to be on the Best and Worst Manga of 2016 panel, along with Daryl Surat and Jason Thompson. I’m curious to see how our tastes align and if I can convince people to try some of the manga I’m a big fan of. After the panel I’ll be sure to post my list here!

Siliconera recently posted an interview with Norihisa Kochiwa, development director of Idea Factory. Otomate is a studio under Idea Factory that focuses on romantically themed visual novels aimed at women. Some of their games have made it over to the west, such as Hakuoki, Sweet Fuse, and Amnesia: Memories. In the interview Kochiwa goes over thematic decisions for new games and bringing out their titles worldwide.

“What we at Otomate would like to focus on and strive toward now is to work with various partner companies and creators to bring more of our Otomate titles to fans worldwide! We appreciate all your continued support!”

“Also, we would love to have feedback from western otome fans! Our first step is to try and introduce otome games as part of gaming culture in western countries, and grow the otome genre with our fans!”

It’s nice to hear that they are making efforts to bring out more otome games globally! We’ve seen part of their efforts recently with Idea Factory International releasing Amnesia: Memories for PlayStation Vita and even porting it to Steam!

But honestly “dating sim” seems kind of a misnomer when applied to something like Amnesia. In the West it’s used as kind of a blanket term to describe any romantically-themed interactive game, which can be both easy to understand but also confusing when nuance is concerned. The term “otome” is gaining some prominence, though (it’s even used in the Steam tags). But Amnesia itself plays out more like a mystery adventure visual novel, where your traumatized heroine tries to navigate existing relationships with guys she doesn’t remember via parallel worlds, thanks to the help of ethereal Orion who acts as your guide and your snarky commentary (he says what we’re all thinking, in a very meta sense).

So don’t go into Amnesia expecting to build sweet relationships among a pool of options. Instead each guy is honestly kind of a jerk and at times terrifying, and through dialogue choices you’re trying to suss out what your relationship even was in the first place without raising suspicion. It’s like watching a soap opera mid-season and trying to work out all the backstories. I find it very interesting!

Lucky for us Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star has also been announced for the makeover treatment and will be coming out from Mediatonic and Devolver Digital in the Fall for all supported platforms (PC. Vita, and PS4). I have a friend who has played through the original doujinshi release of Holiday Star and she reports it’s just as messed up as the first game, so I’m extremely excited for it.

I’m so excited to see interest in these kind of games and topics of romance increase. There’s a whole lot more to be explored in the genre and the inspirations these games cause could turn into some really unique games down the line!